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Canada's commitment to sustainability was enshrined in 1992 in the
National Forest Strategy entitled Sustainable Forests: A Canadian
Commitment. The National Forest Information System (NFIS), a Canadian
Council of Forest Ministers initiative, is being developed to provide
Canadians, and the international community, with authoritative information
about the state of Canada's forests and how they are being sustainably
managed.
Canada's forests cover almost 500 million hectares and stretch across the
country. Responsibility for these forests falls under a great many
jurisdictions and management agencies including governments, industry and
other organizations. Forestry information is gathered in different ways,
for different uses and is stored in different locations. As a result,
accessing and integrating this information is extremely complex.
NFIS is addressing these significant and wide-ranging differences by
adopting international standards and by building a distributed network of
servers and applications which allow access to forestry information held
by independent agencies.
NFIS provides Web tools, ranging from simple portrayal to sophisticated
analyses, to users from anywhere in the world. It means users can
discover, integrate, and display this current, authoritative and accurate
information on Canada's forests and on sustainable forest management.
In August 2000 the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers (CCFM) agreed
on the need to establish an information infrastructure, called the
National Forest Information System (NFIS), to answer on matters
relating to sustainable forest management in Canada. The Ministers
asked the CCFM-NFIS Steering Committee to direct the development of
NFIS, including:
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developing a governance model defining the role and responsibility
of each jurisdiction;
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defining the information needed to respond to our sustainable
forest management commitments;
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examining opportunities for co-operation and co-ordination with
other government and department agencies;
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clarifying the infrastructure of the Internet site; and
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taking into account the investments done by each jurisdiction in
the respective inventory programs.
The CCFM-NFIS Steering Committee is charged with the phased implementation of NFIS ....
Read the NFIS Overview
- 79kb PDF
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Includes a video introduction to NFIS (Time: 4:39).
Requires Apple Quicktime.
To view the introduction video of NFIS, visit the
NFIS Introduction Video Webpage.
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The NFIS Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Webpage answers some common questions about NFIS.
To view the NFIS FAQs, visit the NFIS FAQs Webpage.
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Lists all NFIS Partners
and their contact information.
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The NFIS Progress Reports contain the NFIS Steering Committee
conference call meeting minutes. Other reports include a link
to the National Forest Database Program Data Reports, and a DACS Request Form.
(Access Restricted).
To view the NFIS reports, visit the NFIS Reports and Documents Webpage
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This page includes the Technical Overview
for the National Information System. The Technical Overview consists of two documents:
- Reference Architecture for the National Forest Information System
- Reference Architecture Slide Show.
To view a tehnical overview of NFIS, visit the Technical Overview Webpage.
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Contains contact information for NFIS development team.
To view contact information for the NFIS development team, visit the
Technical Contacts Webpage.
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